Ground Control to Major Tom

How strange. I didn't know him but I am shedding real tears.

Some people die and you say; “oh, that’s a shame! “ “Oh I liked him/her” or something similar.  But the demise of Bowie is more major. It provokes  a more profound response.

It is evening.  I have called Baba to bring the Armagnac over. I am settling in for a wake.  I have put on a “Best of Bowie” DVD . David Bowie is performing Ziggy Stardust at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1973.    

A large part of western humanity must be watching  "the best of Bowie"  DVD's tonight so I am plugging directly into the Zeitgeist even from my out of the way Mali position....  Birgit and Andrea have been here. We have danced to Jean Jeanie and Rebel Rebel.  They are now gone and I am finding myself once more spellbound by Starman, Space Oddity, Ziggy Stardust , Ashes to Ashes; all the epic ones. And he was a master of the Epic of course.

It is shocking when one’s immortals die: it is a wake-up call and it feels like a betrayal. It shakes one’s world- how can it be possible? We were all young and we were all immortal and now our pillars are crumbling and falling and soon it is all over...

Some of my heroes can be dead and it is OK because I am used to it: I am thinking of people like Goethe; Mozart, Martin Luther King,  Jimi Hendrix   and Janis Joplin. But some of them are just not allowed to die because they are so much part of life as I know it! I am surprised at how much I am grieving David Bowie. I dread the demise of Bob Dylan!

 “Now its time to leave the capsule if you dare”

“I am stepping through the door and I am floating in a most peculiar way ...The stars looks very different today... Planet Earth is blue and there’s nothing I can do...  I think my spaceship knows which way to go...

Can you hear me Major Tom?